The Magic Formula to Wealth: Purpose + Passion = Performance!

Money with a purpose can be used to change the world. It feeds the poor, builds shelters, and changes lives and souls for the kingdom of God. Money with a godly purpose can be revolutionary. If you desire money solely for material things, you will never be content. Many of the happiest and most successful people in the world have found their purpose in life. They know exactly what money can do to help their families and help others. If you had more money what would you do with it? Who would you help? What would your days, weeks, and months look like?

When you live out your life’s purpose, live with passion, it will lead to a prosperous life! This was proven by Srully Blotnick. In 1960, he began a study of 1,500 people representing a cross section of middle-class America. Throughout the twenty-year study, they lost almost a third of participants due to deaths, moves, or other factors. Of the 1,057 that remained, 83 had become millionaires. When Mr. Blotnick’s team interviewed participants at the beginning of the study, the most widely shared impression they found was that “great wealth can come to you only as a result of doing things you don’t want to do.” They also noted that from the start, most participants assumed that chance would play a decisive role in determining who became wealthy.
They found that the 83 successful people shared five characteristics: they were persistent, they were patient, they were willing to handle both the “nobler and the pettier” aspects of their job, they had an increasingly noncompetitive attitude towards the people with whom they worked, and their investment activities—aside from their main career—consumed a minimum of their time and attention.
Blotnick admitted, “We originally expected the people in our sample to become wealthy by taking the money they earned at work and investing it wisely, in such things as stocks, bonds, and real estate . . . we thought there’d be no way for [them] to become rich unless they used their surplus income to generate more income . . . It didn’t work out that way. . . . More often than not they made little or no money investing.”

In short, what the study unveiled was that the main source of wealth for the successful participants was that they found something they loved to do and they did it well. “In case after case,” wrote Blotnick, “they did increasingly well occupationally, while their pursuit of investment profits proved to be largely a waste of time. In the long run, it was their work which made them rich.” Blotnick concluded that investing in yourself, what you do, and with whom you do it are the most important determining factors of wealth.

Source: Getting Rich Your Own Way, Srully Blotnick (Jove, 1982).

How will you use your wealth?

Unless you can envision how you will use money to better the lives of others, no amount of money will fill you up. It is only Christ’s love that fills the void in your life. As you grow closer to Him, He will help you find your purpose—your unique calling.

Matt Bell is a friend of mine. In his book, Money, Purpose, Joy, Matt shares his story. You can read about Matt at www.mattaboutmoney.com. Early in his life Matt thought he had found his purpose. Out of the blue he inherited $60,000 from an uncle. He knew he wanted to do something noble with the money and decided to start a business.

He looked at what he was passionate about and ended up developing a golf newsletter. He played some of the best courses in the world and wrote about them. The only problem was he had a very limited subscriber base and wasn’t making any money. This continued for years until Matt had not only burned through his inheritance, he’d racked up $20,000 in credit card debt.

With this experience under his belt, Matt sought to study how money works and how to develop financial purpose. Matt recalls, ―A person who can turn a $60,000 blessing into a $20,000 debt has a lot to learn about money. This fueled me to want to learn about wise ways to use money for a better purpose. With his newfound learning, Matt worked his way into the corporate world and quickly made his way up the ladder. A high-paying corporate job was not his purpose, however; he knew he wanted to be able to write and speak full-time.

What are you doing to live out the magic formula? I’d love to hear you share your story! Comment below.